new mac mini and fcp 2?

[13]

Personally I would not even try and run ANY version on FCP on a Mac Mini. The graphics card is vary limited and I I know that some applications will not even run with that graphics card(they may not even let you install them) Motion & Color for example.

If FCP will even install in the Mini, you are limited to only one firewire bus on the computer. Sure you can use a firewire hub, but any firewire device connected will still be sharing the same bus.

I used to work at a place the the owner/boss did not understand the problems this would cause, and so I was forced to use a computer with only one Firewire bus.

I would always be getting dropped frames, especially when laying back to tape. This is because the hard drive that the video was on had to share the same firewire bus as the deck and so from time to time the firewire bus would get overloaded and then I would get dropped frames.

You also do not want to use the internal drive to edit footage from. This drive already has to run the computers OS and any applications that are installed on it. Because it has enough to do already you will also get dropped frames, because you are giving that one drive way to much to do at one time.

Even the iMacs do only have one Firewore bus.

If you want to do video, especially using Final Cut you should look into a MacBook Pro, or a Mac Pro. With those you can ether add a separate bus for hard drives on the MacBook Pro or you an add separate hard drives internally on the Mac Pro.

[Arnie Schlissel]

The Mac Mini and the Macbook (not Macbook Pro) don’t have dedicated graphics cards. Many features of the FCS suite will not work at all on a Mini or non “pro” Macbook.

[Eric Oliver]

I’m not using it as my main edit suite, just a backup so I can keep working while doing a long render or export to compressor.

FCP 5 runs like a champ on the minis…they used 4 or 5 them with several g5’s to edit the movie zodiac.

[Ben Holmes]

I run FCS 1 successfully on a Mac Mini (as previously posted). Don’t think FCS2 will be significantly different, although Color almost certainly won’t install. Note that Motion 2 did install on my Mini, even though the specs said it wouldn’t.

It’s not quick, but you can use it for the odd export or build.

Ben

[Flavio G. garcía]

Using the new Mac Mini here, with FCS 2.

We only use it to capture dv tapes and do basic editions. Also to teach the basics of FCP…

No problems…

Flavio.

[Eric Oliver]

thx. Do you think it would handle P2?

[Paul Escandon]

Instead of tell you what you should or shouldn’t do – I’ll just try to answer your question. As the previous posters already said, it will work. I personally run Final Cut Studio 2 on my first gen MacBook and it works fine. Color WILL install, however it will not run because of the graphics situation. Final Cut Pro 6 works just as good as Final Cut Pro 5.

And also to shed a little more light regarding the single firewire bus that the first responder mentioned–even though my firewire drive and deck share 1 firewire bus, I’ve never have had any problems during capture, playback, and lay-off. In theory there could be problems, but in a year plus using this machine to edit DV, HDV, and even some DVCPRO HD 720 footage on and external firewire drive while using a DV deck, I’ve never had any problems with stuff that was rendered on a timeline.

So while there are definitely much better options out there as far as hardware for running FCS, the mac mini should work without problems.

Hope this helps. Peace.